Still, just holding a little iron device designed to crush the sort of fingers that were holding it, looking at a knotted cord whose twin knots - once the cord was tightened behind the head - were set at just the right distance to compress and burst the sort of eyes that were looking at it . . . well, it was kind of affecting. She spent a fair bit of time shivering and rubbing the bits of her body that kept getting bumps.

She wondered how many people had looked upon this grisly collection of memorabilia. She had asked the ship but it had been vague; apparently it regularly offered its services as a sort of travelling museum of pain and ghastliness, but it rarely had any takers.

One of the exhibits which she discovered, towards the end of her wanderings, she did not understand. It was a little bundle of what looked like thin, glisteningly blue threads, lying in a shallow bowl; a net, like something you’d put on the end of a stick and go fishing for little fish in a stream. She tried to pick it up; it was impossibly slinky and the material slipped through her fingers like oil; the holes in the net were just too small to put a finger-tip through. Eventually she had to tip the bowl up and pour the blue mesh into her palm. It was very light. Something about it stirred a vague memory in her, but she couldn’t recall what it was. She asked the ship what it was, via her neural lace.

~ That is a neural lace, it informed her. ~ A more exquisite and economical method of torturing creatures such as yourself has yet to be invented.

She gulped, quivered again and nearly dropped the thing.

~ Really? she sent, and tried to sound breezy. ~ Ha. I’d never really thought of it that way.

~ It is not generally a use much emphasised.

~ I suppose not, she replied, and carefully poured the fluid little device back into its bowl on the table.

She walked back to the cabin she’d been given, past the assorted arms and torture machines. She decided to check up on how the war was going, again through the lace. At least it would take her mind off all this torture shit.

Affront Declare War On Culture.

(Major events so far, by time/importance.

(Likely limits.

(Detailed events to date.

(Greatest conflict since Idiran War?

(Likely link with Esperi Excession.

(The Affront - a suitable case for treatment?

(So this is how the barbarians felt; the experience of war through the ages.

Ship Store at Pittance taken over by Affront; hundreds of ships appropriated.

(How could it happen?

(Insurance policies or weak points?

(Pundit paradise; placing their bets on what happens next.

(The psychology of warships.

Warcraft from other ship stores mobilised.

(Partial mobilisation earlier - so who knew what when?

(Technical stuff; lots of exciting figures for armamentaphiles.

Peace initiatives.